第297章
Between eleven and twelve o'clock that night, Miss Gwilt, standing alone at the window which lit the corridor of the Sanitarium on the second floor, heard the roll of wheels coming toward her. The sound, gathering rapidly in volume through the silence of the lonely neighborhood, stopped at the iron gates. In another minute she saw the cab draw up beneath her, at the house door.
The earlier night had been cloudy, but the sky was clearing now and the moon was out. She opened the window to see and hear more clearly. By the light of the moon she saw Allan get out of the cab, and turn round to speak to some other person inside. The answering voice told her, before he appeared in his turn, that Armadale's companion was her husband.
The same petrifying influence that had fallen on her at the interview with him of the previous day fell on her now. She stood by the window, white and still, and haggard and old--as she had stood when she first faced him in her widow's weeds.
Mr. Bashwood, stealing up alone to the second floor to make his report, knew, the instant he set eyes on her, that the report was needless. "It's not my fault," was all he said, as she slowly turned her head and looked at him. "They met together, and there was no parting them."She drew a long breath, and motioned him to be silent. "Wait a little," she said; "I know all about it."Turning from him at those words, she slowly paced the corridor to its furthest en d; turned, and slowly came back to him with frowning brow and drooping head--with all the grace and beauty gone from her, but the inbred grace and beauty in the movement of her limbs.
"Do you wish to speak to me?" she asked; her mind far away from him, and her eyes looking at him vacantly as she put the question.
He roused his courage as he had never roused it in her presence yet.
"Don't drive me to despair!" he cried, with a startling abruptness. "Don't look at me in that way, now I have found it out!""What have you found out?" she asked, with a momentary surprise on her face, which faded from it again before he could gather breath enough to go on.
"Mr. Armadale is not the man who took you away from me," he answered. "Mr. Midwinter is the man. I found it out in your face yesterday. I see it in your face now. Why did you sign your name 'Armadale' when you wrote to me? Why do you call yourself 'Mrs.
Armadale' still?"
He spoke those bold words at long intervals, with an effort to resist her influence over him, pitiable and terrible to see.
She looked at him for the first time with softened eyes. "I wish I had pitied you when we first met," she said, gently, "as I pity you now."He struggled desperately to go on and say the words to her which he had strung himself to the pitch of saying on the drive from the terminus. They were words which hinted darkly at his knowledge of her past life; words which warned her--do what else she might, commit what crimes she pleased--to think twice before she deceived and deserted him again. In those terms he had vowed to himself to address her. He had the phrases picked and chosen;he had the sentences ranged and ordered in his mind; nothing was wanting but to make the one crowning effort of speaking them--and, even now, after all he had said and all he had dared, the effort was more than he could compass! In helpless gratitude, even for so little as her pity, he stood looking at her, and wept the silent, womanish tears that fall from old men's eyes.
She took his hand and spoke to him--with marked forbearance, but without the slightest sign of emotion on her side.
"You have waited already at my request," she said. "Wait till to-morrow, and you will know all. If you trust nothing else that I have told you, you may trust what I tell you now. _It will end to-night._"As she said the words, the doctor's step was heard on the stairs.
Mr. Bashwood drew back from her, with his heart beating fast in unutterable expectation. "It will end to-night!" he repeated to himself, under his breath, as he moved away toward the far end of the corridor.
"Don't let me disturb you, sir," said the doctor, cheerfully, as they met. "I have nothing to say to Mrs. Armadale but what you or anybody may hear."Mr. Bashwood went on, without answering, to the far end of the corridor, still repeating to himself: "It will end to-night!" The doctor, passing him in the opposite direction, joined Miss Gwilt.
"You have heard, no doubt," he began, in his blandest manner and his roundest tones, "that Mr. Armadale has arrived. Permit me to add, my dear lady, that there is not the least reason for any nervous agitation on your part. He has been carefully humored, and he is as quiet and manageable as his best friends could wish.
I have informed him that it is impossible to allow him an interview with the young lady to-night; but that he may count on seeing her (with the proper precautions) at the earliest propitious hour, after she is awake to-morrow morning. As there is no hotel near, and as the propitious hour may occur at a moment's notice, it was clearly incumbent on me, under the peculiar circumstances, to offer him the hospitality of the Sanitarium. He has accepted it with the utmost gratitude; and has thanked me in a most gentlemanly and touching manner for the pains I have taken to set his mind at ease. Perfectly gratifying, perfectly satisfactory, so far! But there has been a little hitch--now happily got over---which I think it right to mention to you before we all retire for the night."Having paved the way in those words (and in Mr. Bashwood's hearing) for the statement which he had previously announced his intention of making, in the event of Allan's dying in the Sanitarium, the doctor was about to proceed, when his attention was attracted by a sound below like the trying of a door.